Testimony of Randi Weingarten before the City Council Committees on the Fiscal 2008 Executive Budget Proposal for the Department of Education: May 22, 2007
May 22, 2007 3:48 PM
I’m here today to talk about what the teachers and other front-line educators in the public school system believe should be our education spending priorities for the next fiscal year. However, given the new funding system at DOE, I expect it will be harder to implement systemwide priorities, as schools, or more specifically principals, are each making individual decisions about their own spending priorities — (which may or may not conflict with what the Council, mayor or others, including the union, think ought to be the priorities).
While we agree that the best decision-making is closest to the students, we also believe that oversight is always necessary. To ensure the best decisions are being made, principals are supposed to consult with their staffs and with their School Leadership Teams on budget priorities. That consultation will undoubtedly enhance the quality of the decisions, and somebody must make sure it happens. The UFT will do its part, of course, but I urge you to make sure there is an effective check and balance on principals’ decisions, with the official teeth to enforce it.
We are concerned that the only real accountability – some 85% of it to be specific -- is in the test scores. Today the ELA scores came out, showing that our 8th grade students did better, which is welcome, but other grades were down or flat, when you include the ELL students – whom we believe should not have been tested this way. We were especially concerned to see that the percentage of Level 1s has remained steady and the percentage of Level 4s declined. An emphasis on getting the Level 2 kids to Level 3, at the expense of the lowest and highest performing kids, may look good for a school’s success rate, but it’s not good educational practice.
We get concerned that in this test-driven environment if youngsters know nothing but what’s tested, if they are not turned on by learning, nobody will be the wiser for it. I worry about a system that measures success so narrowly, and chooses not to know what’s really going on.
Even within this construct, however, at least one funding priority has been set. We are glad to see the infusion of funds into middle schools, which clearly need what amounts to a Marshall Plan. We eagerly await the report of the Speaker’s task force, which hopefully will be influenced in large part by the recommendations from the Committee for Educational Justice. These include small classes, a well-rounded curriculum, rich support services, and opportunities for career exploration, expanded guidance services, and exposure to the arts. These reforms would give us the fifty pilot junior high schools promised by the mayor.
And while we are talking about middle schools, I urge you to provide middle school youngsters, indeed all our students, with ample guidance services, such as those specified in Alan Gerson’s proposal for a counselor for every 450 students in grades K-8, instead of the current 617. That would mean hiring about 200 more counselors.
We also urge the expansion of Career and Technical Ed programs in all our secondary schools, especially middle schools and comprehensive high schools. CTE schools have the best graduation rates in the city; perhaps more CTE programs can serve the same purpose for regular high schools and middle schools.
And we recommend that Project Arts funding be solely dedicated to that purpose and not be mixed into funds to be used at the principal’s discretion.
Let me take this opportunity to thank the Council for your continued support for funding for classroom supplies, for teacher workstations and for decent furniture for teachers’ preparation rooms. These have all made the day-to-day lives of our educators better and enhanced their productivity.
Unfortunately, we are falling behind. Many of the 450 copiers you have contributed to about a third of our schools are now 7 or 8 years old and unusable. Yet the baseline allocation allows for only 36 to be added next year. More are needed. And the furniture has helped 88 schools so far, and is not baseline. We urge you to continue and expand this program.
Teachers’ Choice also needs a boost. We estimate that an additional $3.5 million will provide a small increase and cover whatever needs the school system for staff who dig deep into their own pockets to subsidize their students and these funds provide supplies for special projects and creative lessons that may otherwise not be possible. Members really cherish being able to do these extras and making their own priorities and they thank you for it.
Let me use my remaining time to talk about the some other needs and the new school funding and decision making processes. It is not enough to send schools money no-strings-attached. If the chancellor commits to a plan, steps should be taken to ensure the public and our kids that it is implemented. How do we ensure, for example, whether funding priorities or citywide priorities are implemented? As you know, I have my qualms about the reorganization and the new funding formula. Still, we are pleased that the chancellor saw the wisdom of the objections that a coalition of parents, teachers and community activists raised about the potential for destabilizing schools with experienced staffs.
We certainly have no argument with directing more funds to high-needs schools, and we agree with the goal of ensuring that every school has a good mix of experienced and novice teachers. But, with new money coming in, there is no need to achieve that by engineering teacher transfers from schools that have retained an experienced staff for years.
Thankfully, the DOE amended its plan and will hold all schools harmless from budget cuts due to the new formula for at least two years. We will carefully watch and discern that schools will make personnel decisions based on cost and not on a teacher’s qualifications and potential fit with the school’s mission and not on cost. And if we see that costs — something the old system never quantified — are trumping qualifications, and are stopping schools from receiving the experienced teachers they need, we will raise those issues quite vocally. In the spirit of collaboration, we have agreed to join an oversight committee with DOE and other stakeholders in the system to monitor the implementation of FSF.
On this note, we should be redoubling our efforts to attract experienced teachers into low-performing schools. I say attract, not force, because the key to turning a school around is building a collaborative school community that is invested in its success.
It should not be too hard to do that. In fact, the distribution of experienced staff is not so unbalanced as some claim. Because of better salaries and more open transfer opportunities, it turns out that the proportion of experienced teachers today is just about the same in schools with more than an 80% poverty level as it is in schools with less than an 80% poverty level. In other words, on average, about 55% of the teachers in middle-class schools have more than 5 years experience. That’s pretty good news. But even better news is that the same is true in poor neighborhoods – 55% of the teachers have more than 5 years of experience. So, on average, our students, whether rich or poor, all receive the benefits of teacher experience about equally.
We can do even better. Earlier this month I made three proposals for incentives to bring more experienced teachers into low-performing schools. Briefly, they include permitting teachers who want to stay together, for example when a school closes, to transfer in groups. In addition, we should offer a service differential for teachers who undertake difficult assignments and special projects that go beyond the requirements of the job – for example launching a schoolwide parent outreach program or a community environmental program. Finally, by funding low-performing schools to reduce the student: teacher ratio by 20%, teachers could better individualize instruction by having fewer students and additional time for collaborative work on school improvement.
These ideas were well received, but I want to tell you the idea that can be done right now – and it’s one that you can help us with. In many neighborhoods teachers are kept away by the lack of parking. Mass transit is unfortunately very limited between the outer boroughs. Teachers in schools in crowded residential neighborhoods spend hours circling the block looking for a spot or rushing out mid-day to change sides. If each of you in your own communities can help convince local authorities to designate reserved street parking for teachers, you would be doing those schools a great service.
Still, even with the city’s agreement to modify the Fair Student Funding formula, other problems remain. The reorganization gives principals extensive budgetary discretion, which may put us on a collision course with the state’s Contract for Excellence and with our goal to substantially reduce class sizes.
The Contract for Excellence makes districts accountable for spending the CFE money on proven education programs. It therefore put out a limited menu of options for each district: they can spend the new state money on class size reduction, increased student time on task, teacher and principal quality initiatives, middle and high school restructuring or full-day pre-kindergarten. In his guidance to principals the chancellor noted these priorities.
For most districts in NY State the choice among these initiatives is theirs to make. However, the Contract specifically mandates New York City, unlike other districts, to reduce class size – not surprising considering that our class sizes are 10-60 percent larger than those in the rest of the state. By July 1, about 5 weeks from now, the city and the individual districts must submit plans to the public and to the state Education Department for achieving smaller classes, including plans for the 07-08 school year.
That mandate is where the problem lies.
Aside from the unencumbered school allocations under the new formula, the DOE has separately budgeted funds for expanded pre-kindergarten classes, special education services, teacher and principal raises and professional development, charters and small schools, and a new science core curriculum.
However, on class size reduction, the budget is silent. While the state has demanded that the city reduce class sizes, no funds in the mayor’s budget are earmarked for that purpose. The April agreement with the Mayor created a joint committee that will be working on this, but principals are deciding their budget priorities right now.
The DOE has said that schools in its Empowerment Zone this year spent 60 percent of their budget enhancements on hiring additional teachers. But that is strictly voluntary. And we heard from some of our field representatives that where schools created additional classes to reduce class size, the DOE often responded by sending more students.
So how is class size reduction to be systemically funded and implemented?
In accordance with our agreement, the class size coalition will be meeting with DOE to formulate the plan to reduce class sizes. But it remains unclear how it will be funded and what leverage the chancellor will exert over the newly empowered principals. All together, the mayor seeks to add $915 million to the city education budget including $640 million in new state funds. That is just a down payment on about 5-and-a-half-billion dollars over the next four years. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity; perhaps the last best chance to get class sizes in New York City to levels that at least match the rest of the state. Classes where teachers can individualize instruction and students can learn has to be our main priority, and that has to be expressed in the school budget.
Please feel free to ask me whatever questions you have today or any time. Thank you.
